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恒大崩盘背后：会计问题和监管不善令其加速陷入灾难China Evergrande’s Crash Was Accelerated by Questionable Accounting 6park.com艾莎 2023年12月6日 6park.com中国恒大在广东东莞仍未完工的楼盘，摄于2021年。 GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
6park.comIn January, more than 100 financial sleuths were dispatched to the Guangzhou headquarters of China Evergrande Group, a real estate giant that had defaulted a year earlier under $300 billion of debt. Its longtime auditor had just resigned, and a nation of home buyers had directed its ire at Evergrande. 6park.com今年1月，100多人的工作组派驻中国恒大集团的广州总部，这家负债逾2万亿元的房地产巨头在2021年底出现了债务违约。长期担任恒大系上市公司的审计机构刚刚辞任，全国各地的购房者们将怒火对准了恒大。 6park.comPolice on watch for protesters stood guard outside the building, and the new team of auditors were issued permits to get in. After six months of work, the auditors reported that Evergrande had lost $81 billion over the prior two years, vastly more than expected. 6park.com警察在总部大楼外站着，留意抗议者的动向。新的审计团队得到了进入大楼的许可。审计人员在工作了六个月后发布了恒大业绩报告，公司过去两年净亏损高达8120亿元，远远超出人们的预料。 6park.comBut they still had questions. Some records they had requested from Evergrande were incomplete. Numbers were missing. Important accounting errors or misstatements may have gone undetected. How had things at Evergrande — once one of China’s most successful companies — gone so wrong? 6park.com但审计人员仍有没搞清楚的问题。他们向恒大索要的一些信息没有完整记录。有些数字不见了。重要的会计错误或错报可能一直未被发现。恒大曾是中国最成功的公司之一，它的情况怎么会变得如此之糟？ 6park.comChina’s housing boom was the biggest the world has seen, and Evergrande’s rise was powered by rapacious expansion, the system that stoked it and foreign investors who threw money at it. When China’s housing bubble burst, no other company imploded in as spectacular a fashion. 6park.com中国曾经拥有繁荣的房地产市场，其规模之大在世界上史无前例，恒大成为中国最大的房地产开发商靠的是贪婪的扩张、刺激它发展的体制，以及为其投入巨资的外国投资者。当中国房地产市场泡沫破灭时，没有公司像恒大那样以令人惊叹的方式突然崩溃。 6park.comIn 2021, the blame for Evergrande’s failure was placed squarely on a political directive from Beijing to cool the market by restricting access to loans by property developers, depriving the debt-saddled company of cash to fund its operations. 6park.com恒大2021年出现违约时，人们曾把公司无法偿还债务归咎于来自北京的一项政治指令，政府为了给房地产市场降温，开始对开发商获得贷款进行限制，使这家负债累累的公司失去了运营所需的现金。 6park.comBut interviews with people close to Evergrande and a reconstruction of publicly available documents offer an alternate explanation: Questionable accounting and poor corporate oversight, leading to problems like the disappearance of $2 billion, had already sent the company careening toward catastrophe. 6park.com但通过采访了解恒大的人士，以及对公开文件的重新梳理，恒大的崩溃有了另一种解释：有问题的会计方法和公司监管不善导致6643亿元收入消失等问题已经让公司步入灾难。 6park.comThe scale of Evergrande’s rise was staggering. For three decades, it wielded power in Beijing and in cities and towns thousands of miles away. The success turned its founder and chairman, Hui Ka Yan, into one of the world’s wealthiest people and enriched an entire ecosystem — from the local governments that sold it land to the Wall Street banks that charged it fees to raise money. 6park.com恒大扩张的规模之大令人难以置信。30年来，它在北京以及千里之外的城镇叱咤风云。公司的成功使其创始人兼董事长许家印成为世界上最富有的人之一，也养肥了与公司相关的一整套系统——从卖地的地方政府到通过为其筹资向公司收取费用的华尔街银行。 6park.comThe breadth of Evergrande’s stumbles was mind-numbing. The company promised hundreds of thousands of home buyers apartments that it never built. It took in billions of dollars from families and employees, some of which has vanished. It took labor from construction workers, painters and real estate agents without compensation, unpaid bills that have snowballed into $140 billion. 6park.com恒大崩溃的影响之广令人目瞪口呆。公司把从未盖出来的几十万套公寓预售给了购房者。它从普通家庭和公司员工那里拿走了上百亿元，其中一些已经不知所踪。它拖欠建筑工人、油漆工人和房地产经纪人的工资，欠下的账单如滚雪球般迅速增至万亿元。 6park.comToday Evergrande remains in default, unable to pay its debts but not officially defunct. Its stock trades for pennies a share. On Monday, a legal attempt to force its liquidation was prolonged: A judge adjourned a hearing in a lawsuit seeking to formally dismantle the sprawling company to pay back some of the investors who lost money. 6park.com今天，恒大仍处于违约状态，无力偿还债务，但还没有被正式清算。股票的交易价只剩下几美分。周一，强制恒大清盘的法律努力被推迟：一名法官延期了损失惨重的投资者对这家规模庞大的公司提出的诉讼案的听证，他们希望通过对恒大进行正式清算拿回部分损失。 6park.comEvergrande officials and its representatives did not respond to several requests for interviews or comment. 6park.com恒大官员及其代表没有回复记者多次提出的采访或置评请求。 6park.com
恒大的成功让创始人许家印成为世界上最富有的人之一。 PAUL YEUNG/BLOOMBERG
儋州当局下令恒大拆除其在海花岛盖的楼盘，理由是破坏环境和建筑违规。 ALY SONG/REUTERS 6park.comA housing boom that was overpriced, overbuilt and overleveraged. 6park.com售价过高、建设过度、靠大笔举债的房地产市场繁荣。 6park.comChina’s housing boom began around the time that Mr. Hui started Evergrande in 1996 in the city of Shenzhen, a special economic zone where the Chinese Communist Party was experimenting with capitalism. 6park.com中国房地产市场的繁荣大致是从许家印在深圳创办恒大集团的1996年开始的。深圳是中共试验资本主义的经济特区。 6park.comEvergrande expanded beyond Shenzhen as China underwent massive urbanization, and it was central to the world’s largest movement of people from the countryside to cities. Mr. Hui ingratiated himself with the families of some of China’s most senior officials. He put Wen Jiahong, the brother of China’s then vice premier, Wen Jiabao, on Evergrande’s board of directors in 2002. 6park.com随着中国经历大规模的城市化，恒大的业务扩展到了深圳以外的地方，公司在世界上最大规模的农村人口向城市转移的过程中起了核心作用。许家印巴结一些高官家属。2002年，他把温家宏安置到恒大董事会里，温家宏的哥哥是时任中国副总理的温家宝。 6park.comBy the time Evergrande started selling stock to the public in Hong Kong in 2009, it had already faced questions about its voracious expansion. Foreign investors, many of them American private equity funds, hedge funds and Wall Street banks, had shoveled money into real estate companies a few years earlier, and the debt was piling up. Mr. Hui had hoped to raise $1.5 billion, but the company ended up with $722 million from listing its shares. 6park.com恒大集团2009年在香港上市时，公司已经面临着关于其疯狂扩张的质疑。外国投资者（其中许多是美国私募股权基金、对冲基金和华尔街银行）几年前就对中国的房地产企业投了大量资金，使这些公司的债务高涨。许家印原想通过上市来筹集15亿美元的资金，但公司最终通过新股上市筹集了7.22亿美元。 6park.comAround the world, a global financial crisis was reverberating, one that started with a plunge in housing prices in the United States. But in China, after a short and steep downturn, the government pumped $500 billion into building roads and railways, juicing growth and allowing China to emerge from the crisis before other countries. By listing its shares in Hong Kong, Evergrande had access to money outside China to buy land in China. Dozens of other developers were doing the same thing. Three of them — Kaisa Group, Yuzhou Properties and Fantasia Holdings — raised money over the same few weeks as Evergrande. They have all since defaulted. 6park.com世界各地当时仍处在一场全球金融危机的余波中，这场危机始于美国的房价暴跌。在经历了短暂且急剧的经济衰退后，中国政府拿出了4万亿投资计划，通过公路和铁路建设刺激经济增长，让中国先于其他国家摆脱了危机。通过在香港上市，恒大能从海外筹集在中国购买土地的资金。几十家房地产开发商也在做同样的事情。其中三家——佳兆业集团、禹洲集团和花样年控股集团——也在恒大上市那几周里从海外筹集了资金。这些公司后来都出现违约。 6park.comBy 2010, the market was showing signs of overheating. Housing prices were rising faster than the average household income. Soon economists were warning that China’s housing market was overpriced, supply was overbuilt and its developers were overleveraged. 6park.com到2010年时，中国的房地产市场已出现了过热的迹象。房价上涨的速度远高于家庭平均收入的增速。不久就有经济学家警告，中国房地产市场的价格过高、供应过剩，开发商借贷过多。 6park.comChinese home buyers continued to flock to construction projects anyway. As cities filled up with new apartment blocks, developers looked farther afield to satellite towns and more rural areas. 6park.com但中国的购房者继续蜂拥至建设项目。城市里盖满了新公寓楼后，开发商将目光投向了更远的卫星城和更多的农村地区。 6park.comProspective buyers were led through showrooms and model apartments and then handed a piece of paper to sign. For a third of the price of an apartment, and sometimes even more, they bought a promise, an apartment not yet built. For households with few places to store their wealth, it was difficult to imagine how a bet on real estate could go wrong. 6park.com开发商带着想买房的人参观展厅和样板间，然后让他们在购房合同上签名。买房者花公寓售价三分之一（有时甚至是更高比例）的钱买下一个承诺，他们购买的是期房。对几乎没有投资渠道的家庭来说，很难想象押注房地产会出问题。 6park.comBut things did go wrong. Over the last decade, the authorities have tried to rein in lending, but real estate companies found ways around each restriction, sometimes cutting corners on apartments, other times moving debts off their balance sheets. Eventually, a policy in 2020 that made it harder to borrow started to tip developers over the precipice. 6park.com但的确出了问题。过去十年来，虽然当局一直在试图控制借贷规模，但房地产公司找到了绕过所有限制的办法，有时在公寓建设上偷工减料，有时将债务从资产负债表上转移出去。最终，2020年的一项政策加大了借贷难度，开始将开发商推到了悬崖边上。 6park.comEstimates range over how many apartments remain empty. He Keng, a former deputy head of China’s statistics bureau, recently quipped about an estimate that the number of vacant homes was not enough for three billion people. “That estimate might be a bit much,” he said in a video published by China News Media. “But 1.4 billion people probably can’t fill them.” 6park.com对于空置的估算，数字各异。中国国家统计局前副局长贺铿最近罕见发声称，目前的空置房屋数量足以容纳30亿人。他在中新社发布的一段视频中说，“这个估计可能有点多，但14亿人可能无法填满。” 6park.com
东莞恒大大厦样板房的客厅，摄于2021年。 GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
工地现场的展厅，一名销售员和两名参观者在恒大住宅项目的模型前。 GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES 6park.com‘The biggest bubble in history.’ 6park.com“历史上最大的泡沫。” 6park.comFor months in 2021, Evergrande kept global markets on edge as it approached default, testing a belief that some Chinese companies were too big for the authorities to let them fail. Foreign investors continued to buy the bonds of real estate developers even after one of the biggest beneficiaries of the housing boom, the real estate mogul Wang Jianlin, warned that China’s housing market was “the biggest bubble in history.” 6park.com在2021年的几个月里，恒大接近违约让全球各地的股市紧张不安，让人们对一些中国企业已大到了当局不会让它们倒下的观念受到检验。外国投资者仍继续购买房地产开发商的债券，尽管中国房地产繁荣的最大受益者之一、房地产大亨王健林警告，中国房地产市场是“历史上最大的泡沫”。 6park.comOn Dec. 9, three days after Evergrande missed a deadline to pay interest on some bonds, a credit ratings agency declared the company to be in default. That set in motion a struggle among investors, home buyers, suppliers and banks over how to get what they were owed. 6park.com2021年12月9日，也就是恒大未能按期支付部分债券利息三天后，一家信用评级机构宣布恒大“限制性违约”，引发了投资者、购房者、供应商、银行就如何收回恒大欠的钱展开斗争。 6park.comEvergrande’s collapse was just one domino in a falling line. Since then, 46 other developers have defaulted, leaving a landscape of boarded-up construction sites, angry home buyers and unpaid builders. Worried about social unrest, the authorities have quietly pushed for the companies to continue building apartments. Evergrande built 300,000 apartments in 2022 while the company talked to its creditors about repaying them. 6park.com恒大的崩溃引发多米诺骨牌效应。自恒大违约以来，已有另外46家开发商违约，遗留下围起来的未完工工地、愤怒的购房者，以及被拖欠了款项的建筑商。由于担心社会动荡，当局已在悄悄强迫这些公司继续盖楼。2022年，恒大在与债权人讨论还债问题的同时，完成了30万套公寓的建设。 6park.comBut years of poor corporate governance and bad behavior at Evergrande were spilling into the public as it became harder to get financing. 6park.com但随着恒大越来越难筹集资金，多年来糟糕的公司治理和不良行为逐渐暴露在公众面前。 6park.comThree months after its default, Evergrande said $2 billion had been seized by banks. An internal investigation later revealed that top executives had engineered a plan in late 2020 to get around borrowing restrictions by arranging for third parties to take out loans using Evergrande subsidiaries as collateral.The investigation concluded that the plan breached the company’s disclosure and compliance obligations.Nevertheless, some employees said that “it was not their place to question a matter that was known to and driven by senior executives,” according to the investigation. 6park.com违约三个月后，恒大表示银行已扣押了20亿美元。后来的一项内部调查显示，高层管理人员曾在2020年底制定了一项规避借款限制的计划，用恒大子公司作抵押品通过第三方获取贷款。调查得出的结论是，该计划违反了恒大的披露和合规义务。尽管如此，调查引用一些员工的话说，“他们无权质疑高级管理人员已知并由高级管理人员推动的事情。” 6park.comTop executives, including the chief financial officer and chief executive officer, resigned. “The behavior of certain then directors fell below the standards expected by the company,” according to the internal report, which was signed by Mr. Hui, the founder. 6park.com恒大包括首席财务官和首席执行官在内的高管已经辞职。有创始人许家印签名的一份内部报告称，“时任董事的某些人的行为低于公司预期的标准。” 6park.comThis January, Evergrande’s longtime auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, resigned and said it couldn’t complete its work. Hong Kong’s Accounting and Financial Reporting Council had already announced two reviews of Evergrande’s books. A little known accounting firm, Prism Hong Kong and Shanghai, was brought in to do the work. 6park.com今年1月，一直为恒大系上市公司做审计的普华永道辞任，表示无法完成工作。香港会计及财务报告委员会已宣布对恒大的账簿进行两项审核。名不见经传的上会栢诚会计事务所被聘来做这项工作。 6park.comPrism said in July that Evergrande had lost a combined $81 billion in 2021 and 2022. That compared with what the company said in 2020 was a profit of $1 billion. There were clues in the new audit that Evergrande had been treating money it had received for apartments as revenue even though at times it had not yet built those apartments. 6park.com上会栢诚今年7月表示，恒大在2021年和2022年总共亏损了8120亿元。与此相比，恒大曾在2020年宣布了80亿元的净利润。新审计中有线索表明，恒大一直将出售公寓得到的钱视为收入，尽管在收到钱时公寓尚未建成。 6park.comAfter the new audit, Evergrande agreed to change how it would recognize revenue in its accounts by requiring documentation that an apartment had first been built. 6park.com新审计结果出来后，恒大同意改变其账户中划为收入的处理方式，要求为划为收入的款项提供公寓已建成的文件。 6park.comEvergrande’s wealth management arm, which had pitched short-term and high-interest products to home buyers and employees when money was tight, told investors in August that it wouldn’t be able to make payments. 6park.com恒大的财富服务部门曾在资金紧张时向购房者和员工推销短期高息产品，但在今年8月告知投资者，公司无法支付当月的兑付。 6park.comWithin weeks, the police detained staff at the wealth management unit. The Chinese media reported that the company’s former chief executive, its chief financial officer and the former chairman of Evergrande’s life insurance unit had also been detained. 6park.com警方已在那之后的几周里拘留了财富服务部门的工作人员。据中国媒体报道，恒大前总裁、前首席财务官，以及恒大人寿保险部门的前董事长都已被警方带走。 6park.com
深圳恒大总部外的保安人员，摄于2021年。投资者聚集在那里，要求偿还贷款和金融产品。 DAVID KIRTON/REUTERS
恒大在2022年宣布，将总部从深圳迁往广州，以降低费用。 GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES 6park.comBehind the scenes, the company’s management team in Hong Kong was making progress toward a restructuring deal with foreign creditors and private lenders. Then, on Sept. 24, Evergrande said it had to reassess and scrapped the deal. A few days later, it disclosed that Mr. Hui had been arrested. 6park.com公司在香港的管理团队正在幕后与外国债权人和私人贷款者达成重组协议上取得进展。后来，恒大在9月24日表示需要重新评估资产，取消了重组交易。几天后，恒大宣布许家印已被有关方面控制。 6park.comChinese social media lit up with comments about how Mr. Hui had become “an enemy of the Chinese people.” People turned their anger to foreign investors and a move by the company to file for bankruptcy protection. Celebrity entrepreneurs piled on about foreigners getting a piece of the remaining company that belonged to home buyers. 6park.com中国社交媒体上充满了关于许家印如何变成了“中国人民的敌人”的评论。人们将愤怒转向外国投资者，以及恒大在美国申请破产保护的做法。知名企业家们夸大其词，称外国人将从恒大剩下的资产中拿走属于购房者的部分。 6park.comAccording to company filings, Mr. Hui had paid himself and his wife more than $7 billion in dividends since taking the company public in 2009. He has told people for at least two years that he and his wife were divorced, according to two people with direct interactions with the company who were not allowed to speak to the media. Filings in August indicate that he and his wife were no longer married. Assets that have been transferred to his former wife will be in dispute. 6park.com据恒大提交的文件，自公司2009年上市以来，许家印向自己和妻子累计支付了约合70多亿美元的红利。据两名直接了解公司情况、但没被授权就公司问题接受媒体采访的人士透露，许家印告诉外界，他与妻子离婚已至少两年。恒大今年8月提交的文件显示，他和妻子已经离婚。已经转移给前妻的资产将引发纠纷。 6park.comTwo years after it defaulted, it is still uncertain how the company will be wound down, how much money will be left and who will get it. 6park.com恒大违约两年后仍不确定的是，如何对该公司进行清算，它还剩下多少资产，谁将得到这些资产。 6park.com 6park.com艾莎(Alexandra Stevenson)是时报上海分社社长，报道中国经济和社会新闻。点击查看更多关于她的信息。
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